CineNiche

Top 11 Horror Films Of 2011

2012-02-01T23:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our first list. 2011 was a great year for horror, maybe not mainstream horror but the independent and foreign markets made up for it. We saw for the most part an uprising of the absurd. Films that may not be strictly canonized as horror filled the gaps simply because they had no set genre. Our list features no remakes, but interestingly enough two sequels, a parody, and a slew of

Who Directed Red State?

2012-01-30T23:36:00.000-08:00

Red State does not feel like a Kevin Smith film at all. Since leaving and reuniting and leaving his View Askew universe Smith has not been able to find his own voice. Zach & Miri Make A Porno felt as though it rod on the coat tails of the Judd Apatow empire and here in Red State Smith seems to have made a Tarantino Cohen Brothers film. While Smith has always infused a bit of politics within

Friends With Kids: Why?

2012-01-30T23:18:00.000-08:00

Normally we here at CineNiche have standards, but on this particular day we were roped into this one. Jennifer Westfeldt wrote, directed, and stared in this slightly amusing rom-com that offers you and hour and a half of fulfilled expectations. The moment Friends With Kids starts you already know the end, and as usual the perfectly acceptable retort to this type of film is that it is all about

It's a mutant baby & It's Alive

2012-01-30T13:29:00.000-08:00

Larry Cohen is not known for style, nor gruesome effects, or even good horror. Most of his films can be easily overlooked and have been. He's not likely to acquire a lifetime achievement award or any accolades for horror. He has made a better name for himself in the last decade as a screenwriter of a few mainstream hits such as Phone Booth and Cellular, and while these films make him more

David Fincher's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

David Fincher's eccentric film resume gives him the upper hand in this needless remake. The tone of the film is in perfect balance with last years Social Network. In the future people will discuss the pre Social Network era of Fincher and the post as if one film divided his work. There is a sense of authorship in Alien 3, The Game, Seven, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, and Curious Case Of

The Fly: Cronenberg's Abject World Of Mutation

2012-01-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

David Cronenberg's take on the 1958 classic The Fly is remarkable. In the original we simply have a science gone awry parable, whereas the remake offers us a god complex and a philosophy on decomposition as only Cronenberg can. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is a reclusive scientist who has been working on the theory and practice of teleportation for six years and the moment his dreams come true

Play Misty For Me: A Cautionary Tale

2012-01-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

From his roots as the stranger with no name, to Inspector Harry Callahan, to various secret service men, to his turn in Gran Torino no one can deny that Clint Eastwood is an American icon. It doesn't matter what taste you have in film, Clint has spiced them all either as an actor or as a director. In 1971 he was given carte blanche to fulfill his dream of filmmaking. The studio only asked

Sexy Beast or How To Deconstruct A Heist Film

2012-01-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Glazer's feature film debut is a gem to behold. If you ever had a doubt about Ben Kingsly this is the role he was born for. In most of heist cinema you have a formula to follow: 1.) The Pitch: this is the who, what, and where of the scheme. 2.) The Roundup: you must collect the right thieves for the job. 3.) Planning: meticulous scouting and preparation that sometimes crosscuts

The Soderberghian Contagion

2012-01-06T02:03:00.000-08:00

This is our formal declaration: Steven Soderbergh is not an autuer. While others may have already came to this decision, we had hope. With a director like Soderbergh with around 27 titles under his belt we had assumed there may be some subtle nuance of authorial style, some flourish that when seen one can say, "oh, there's that Soderbergh moment." This is not to say there is no merit to his

Punk Zombie Classic: The Return Of The Living Dead

2011-09-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

John Russo who helped write the screenplay Night of the Living Dead went on to write his own sequel to the 1968 film, called Return of the Living Dead. Since both Russo and Romero owned the rights to Night each of them retained privileges to its title. Romero kept Dead and Russo was able to keep Living Dead. John Russo wrote his screenplay the same year Romero released Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Where werewolves make us laugh: An American Werewolf In London

2011-07-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Werewolves are wanderers like vampires, but they have the benefit of leading a normal life with the exception of three nights a month. A werewolf is the release of our id. The person transforms when the moon is full, the time of the month when oceans pull back and the polarity of the world is in flux. The werewolf is our release, it is when all the troubles of life pile up and we can’t take it

Audition For Your Role In Hell

2011-07-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

This film has us stumped, not in the sense that we don’t have any theories on its ending, but in the way that the experience was so perfect it has left us with writers block. The film begins with Aoyama’s wife dying and his seven long years of loneliness. This leads him to need to remarry – “men can’t maintain without female support.” He and his friend Yoshikawa set up a fake film audition for

There's Hope For Uncle Kent

2011-05-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

In Joe Swanberg's latest entry Uncle Kent we see that there is still passion in the indie film scene. Here at Cineniche we have followed the director's prolific career from his debut Kissing On The Mouth in 2005 forward. Each film seems to offer a different side of Swanberg's own psyche. His method of treating cinema as a naturalistic forum have caused controversy not only in the film snob

We Are What We Are, Is What It Is.

2011-04-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

Do not be confused by the hype machine and its marketing of Jorge Michel Grau's Mexican film We Are What We Are, this is first and foremost a family drama with a splash of horror. The horror that is publicized occurs for the majority in the last 10 minutes. We begin with the death of the patriarch and from there we shift perspective to the rest of the family. Here we have a useless mother,

Meet Robert, The Killer Tire In RUBBER

2011-03-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

This years bizarre award goes to Quentin Dupieux otherwise known as Mr. Oizo. When Oizo's Flat Beat came into the underground techno world there was a shift that occured with club kids, this shift came in the form of intelligent music. Oizo's music is not only good to bob the head to, but creates an atmosphere you can slip into. So it is no surprise that years later that when Dupieux put his

Hilary Swank & Viewers Are Terrorized In The Resident

2011-02-09T12:52:00.000-08:00

HAMMER, the iconic label of the 70's is back but it's not necessarily a good thing. They returned to give us Matt Reeves' LET ME IN last year which didn't live up to its original. It's second production as a newly revamped studio is The Resident. Later this year they will unveil Wake Wood and a remake of The Woman In Black, and maybe it's too soon to say, but the future of Hammer films looks a

The Vanishing On 7th Street

2011-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

Brad Anderson the brilliant director behind The Machinist, Session 9, and Transsiberian has created a new realm of fantasy terror with The Vanishing On 7th Street, the only problem is how unevenly all the elements come together. We've been avid fans of Anderson's work since his psychological breakthrough Session 9. In his first film he revamps the twist ending by throwing a curve ball no one

Dear Mr. Gacey, You Really Don't Capture Well On Film

2011-01-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Gacey Svetozar Ristovski's adaptation of Jason Moss' superb book The Last Victim plays out like a made-for-TV movie. Jason Moss was a young eager student who developed a theory to gain unfettered access to the mind of a serial killer by portraying himself as their perfect victim. He wrote to Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Lee Lucas, Richard Ramirez, and of course John Wayne

Let Me In: A Complete Waste Of Time?

2011-01-19T02:08:00.000-08:00

Instead of a lengthy comparison between Let The Right One In and Matt Reeves remake, we'll just stick with the basics. Yes, this is an inferior remake of a foreign film. Yes, Reeves takes out the subtlety and ambiguity that made the original such a powerful and beautiful work of art, and instead replaces these elements with bouts of action and decent make-up effects. We would like to say that

The Exorcist: Repression And The Meltdown Of The Family

2010-10-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

Tony Williams describes the undercurrent in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist by writing, “In an era of recession, oil embargoes, the debilitating effects of Vietnam, and crisis of confidence in presidential leadership, cinema provides an ideological answer by invoking a traditional enemy - Satan (107).” Everything terrible that occurs in our lives, by Christian standards is the work of the devil.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Godless Universe & A Chainsaw Ballet

2010-10-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

“Exploitation films are no different from any other kind of movie. All appeal to some desire or fear that the audience may have. Only because they do it more directly, with perhaps a bit less finesse, than a Hollywood product, they are branded as exploitation.” Mike Quarles, Down and Dirty: exploitation filmmakers and their movies (xiii) Around the same year that The Last House on the Left was

Check out Keen Cinema for the latest reviews

2010-10-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

Launched by filmmaker R. J. Chmiel, this site boasts new reviews of films just hitting the theater - given his independent spirit when it comes to his own films - his reviews are great write ups swaying from his own personal philosophy to the social context the film displays. If you're questioning what to see in the current cesspool of cinema hop on over to Keen Cinema You can also see trailers

Night Of The Demons (2009) & Why Modern Horror Fails To Impress

2010-10-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

When the original Night Of The Demons premiered in 1988 it was considered the best of B-Horror and created a franchise that lasted two sequels. It is still the only Kevin Tenney film that highlights his ongoing terrible reel – with possible exception to Witchboard made before Demons. The ’88 version gives us gore, bad acting, ridiculous scripting, and a non-sequitur ending. These were elements

It's Kind Of A Funny Story Is Kind Of A Good Film

2010-10-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden team up again in this coming of age film that steals a few ideas from every teen film ever made and infuses them with a hint of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The directing duo created a powerhouse film in Half Nelson but here lack the imagination to transform seemingly cliché material into something extraordinary. Ned Vizzini’s novel is the stepping stone for this

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About The Original I Spit On Your Grave

2010-09-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

In 1978 Meir Zarchi released I Spit On Your Grave another in the line of rape-revenge films. A film that would have never been made without Last House on the Left, and Deliverance, but this time they centered on the rape and the revenge without any social context interweaved into the plot. The tagline for I Spit On Your Grave was: This woman has just chopped, crippled and mutilated four men

Catfish

2010-09-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

To review Catfish is problematic in several ways. We could provide spoilers and dive into the plotline, but since most people haven’t seen the film yet, we would ruin the experience. Another potential problem of a review would be jading your preconceived notions about the film itself and therefore again ruining the experience. So in this difficult position we would like to briefly discuss the

Werner Herzog What Have Ye Done?

2010-08-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

Theatrical We heard the same buzz as everyone else: David Lynch and Werner Herzog teaming up for the first time to create a film based on the true events of a son killing his mother with a sword. Then when the cast was selected we grew even more excited: Michael Shannon as the sword wielding son, Chloe Sevigny as the girlfriend, Udo Kier as an acting instructor, Willem Dafoe as a detective

Wes Craven is Abe Snake The Fireworks Man

2010-07-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

We would like to apologize for our absence the last two weeks. Life changes have led us astray, but during our sabbatical we uncovered a true gem. The Fireworks Man or Angela The Fireworks Woman – which the latter makes no sense as a title – is not a gem because it’s good cinema, but rather an expose on a known director’s seedy beginnings. The Fireworks Man is a 1975 Porno – a new arena to

In The Mouth Of Madness

2010-06-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Top 3 John Carpenter Films 3. In The Mouth Of Madness 2. The Thing 1. Halloween It has been nearly a decade since Carpenter has given us a new feature film, though the glimmer of hope came with his entry in the Masters Of Horror series: Cigarette Burns then flickered the next season with Pro-Life. Either way these two hour long films make up for his last foray in filmmaking: Ghosts Of Mars, a

Katofalltrades.com - A Tasty Treat We've Found

2010-06-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

It may have nothing to do with film reviews or movies in general but katofalltrades makes us here at CineNiche salivate. The pictures of the wonderfully homemade foods are insane. Looking for the organic life filled with tasty treats, go have a peek for yourself. <------- Isn't it lovely!!!!

Mr. Nobody Is Certainly Somebody To Us

2010-06-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

After a 13 year hiatus from filmmaking Jaco Van Dormael has created in Mr. Nobody the most perfect vision of string theory. Creating a film about every possible outcome of every possible choice and each of their timelines takes either a brilliant mind or one completely mad, and the jury's still out on Dormael. Either way this film is breathtaking. The soundtrack, editing, and cinematography

Surviving Survival Of The Dead

2010-06-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Dear George A. Romero, We here at CineNiche have been long time fans of your work, we eat up any information on your new projects and each of us buy any Fangoria that has an interview with you in it. We love your films, from the genre changing Night Of The Living Dead onward, your films have always been an inspiration to our own indie spirit. Your ability to provide a social commentary more

Is The Human Centipede The Most Disgusting Film?

2010-06-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Tom Six's film The Human Centipede: The First Sequence is a well done first feature from a filmmaker, but is it the most disgusting film ever made? Simply put, no. The biggest problem with this film is the hype machine behind it. "A friend of a friend saw it and nearly threw up," or "people walked out of the theater because it was too disturbing." We've seen this happen before, more

Masters Of The Universe Who Are You Kidding

2010-06-04T19:21:00.001-07:00

TRHE7HMSY9F4 MY REVIEWS Masters of the universe who are you kidding? ReviewStream.com

Best-Horror-Movies posts a section from CineNiche

2010-06-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Our editor just got a little more love over at Best-Horror-Movies but the article is just a reposting of the beginning of: A Study On Fear And Pleasure In The Horror Film which can be read here, but go on over to Best-Horror-Movies and check them out - the site is awesome.

Suspiria - The Greatest Horror Film

2010-06-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from CineNiche editor Shaun Huhn's unpublished book on the horror genre The Wonderfully Terrifying: An Insight Into Our Love Of Being Afraid. This is from the "Monster" section of the book where he writes about witches but we chose this to showcase our favorite film Suspiria. Enjoy. The following has been taken from the limited edition DVD of Suspiria, writer Scott Michael

Zombie or Zombi 2 or Zombie Flesh Eaters

2010-06-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

In 1968 George A Romero created a subgenre in horror that would continue to frighten audiences even forty years later. With Night Of The Living Dead a slew of followers came and each country throughout the world would copy this blueprint. Romero was especially influential to filmmakers in Italy, he lead them to a new genre – the spaghetti-zombie film. The leader of this new genre was Lucio

Cornered - A Fascination with Filth

2010-06-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

"I'm so scared my asshole is puckering... Spooky, Spooky." Cornered! is a study in low budget horror production. We have a total of eight despicable characters with three locations to choose from. Among the eight is the killer who gives us a medium amount of gore, decent jump scares, and creative murders. Even though the production budget was tight Daniel Maze did a great job on his first

CRITICAL MASS – MOVIE CRITIC INTERVIEWS

2010-05-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

Our editor was just published on one of our favorite sites here at CineNiche: Only Good Movies. Check out his interview there and give the site some love. http://www.onlygoodmovies.com/blog/movie-critic-interviews/shaun-huhn-interview/

The Burning - A long thank you

2010-05-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

After the anger receded from the horrible viewing of He Knows You're Alone, we had to go back to an overlooked classic: The Burning. It did the trick. Again this is another slasher from the mold of Halloween, but this one definitely has more of a Friday The 13th feeling - it's another summer camp slasher film. Released in 1981 along with: Bloody Birthday, Don't Go In The Woods, Evil Dead,

He Knows You're Alone

2010-05-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Or He Knows You're Copying. Normally this would be unfair, because all of the slasher films of the eighties copied from the formula laid out very plainly by John Carpenter's Halloween. Even Halloween was an homage to Italian Giallo films by Mario Bava and Dario Argento, but he took those somewhat complex plotlines and cut them down to the bare essentials. Ironically enough, the slasher films

Jack Brooks Monster Slayer

2010-05-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

This may be the shortest review of any film on CineNiche, and it's out of spite. Maybe not spite, but definitely to teach Jon Knautz a lesson. We wanted to love Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. It had been sitting on the unwatched shelf for nine months, just waiting for that right moment to indulge in an Evil Dead type of horror comedy. Finally, the day came - it was the right time - you know

Fiend Without A Face - Great Atomic Fun

2010-05-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

I've heard of some people that will only watch Criterion Collection films, which would brand them the ultimate in cinephile snobs - but little do they realize it harms their street cred because that would mean they hold films like Armeggedon and The Rock to be true cinematic classics as well. It doesn't matter what studio puts out a film, whether it's Janus or Lions Gate if it's good its good. I

Harry Brown The New Paul Kersey

2010-05-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

Watch Michael Cain as Paul Kersey in Death Wish VI: Pensioner’s Revenge. The similarities between Harry Brown and Paul Kersey are endless: both have war time backgrounds and through the loss of someone close to them and no help from the police, decided to take the law into their own hands and become vigilantes for blood justice. The biggest difference between Harry and all of the Death Wish

Stellet Licht - - Silent Light

2010-05-20T21:21:00.001-07:00

"Peace is stronger than love"Carlos Reygadas creates a haunting meditation in his brilliantly nuanced Silent Light. This is not a film for the easily distracted, its transcendence is gradual yet from the beginning you know it is one that requires contemplation. You have to be in the right state of mind to gain pleasure from its artistry. It is slow moving and isn't conceived from a lot of

Religulous

2010-05-17T12:49:00.001-07:00

RELIGULOUSBill Maher, the stoned genius, creates a wonderful religious debate in his comic documentary directed by the controversial mind behind Borat, Larry Charles. The biggest problem with this otherwise brilliant dissertation on the logic of religion is that the dogmatic masses who should see this film - won't. In fact they tried to ban it. Religulous preaches to the choir, in this case

The Quick Fix: New Release List (May 11-17)

2010-05-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Billy Owens & The Secret of the Runes or The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens - whichever way you find this title on some obscure shelf keep walking. Even if you find yourself in love with the aspect of seeing "Rawdy" Roddy Piper using his 'fantastic' acting ability again, do not rent this - instead rewatch They Live for the notorious twenty minute fight scene with Keith David.Forget it unless

Caged Heat - The Only Women-In-Prison Film You Need To See

2010-05-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

From the mind of the prolific director behind films such as Crazy Mama (1975), Fighting Mad (1976), and Handle With Care (1977) comes his directorial debut Caged Heat.Jonathan Demme is also known for little films like Silence Of The Lambs (1991) and Philadelphia (1993) but in 1974 he was enrolled in the class of Roger Corman. Corman talks about the system he used for his directors as a list

Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

2010-05-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

When Wes Craven first pitched this screenplay he was turned down by every major studio, they said it was absurd - unfilmable - and uninteresting. That was 26 years ago, and over the course of those years we've been given 9 Freddy related films and an unnecessary 44 episode TV show.So, keeping in mind that Freddy is a modern icon or modern urban legend/myth and there isn't a single person that

The Quick Fix: New Release List (May 4-10)

2010-05-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the CineNiche get it or forget it list:NINE - is finally here, not that terribly under-existential animated film, but the overly existential re-imagining, re-configuration, re(make) of Frederico Fellini's 1960 classic 8 1/2 staring Daniel Day Lewis. Now if you haven't seen the original you'll be pretty lost in a sea of uncaring at this unspectacular musical. There are a lot of pretty

From A Whisper To A Scream

2010-05-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

TOP ANTHOLOGY HORROR FILMS1. Creepshow2. Trick R Treat3. Tales From The DarksideNotice how FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM (THE OFFSPRING) is not on this list, this is no coincidence. So, it doesn't make the top three or the top ten, but there is still something worthy here. First and foremost it is "hosted" by Vincent Price who plays an old superstitious librarian. This fact alone makes this blood

All Tomorrow's Parties

2010-04-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

Battles, Belle & Sebastian, Dirty Three, Grinderman, Octopus Project, The Gossip, Animal Collective, Saul Williams, Daniel Johnson, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mogwai, Hawk & A Hacksaw, David Cross, Iggy & The Stooges, The Boredoms, Fuck Buttons, Sonic Youth, Akron/Family, Mars Volta, Portishead, Les Savy Fav, Patty Smith, and Grizzly BearSounds like a newbie Indie kid's Amazon wishlist, instead these are

GREENBERG

2010-04-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

Preface:Not a normal Niche review, because GREENBERG is getting a lot of press, but Baumbach's genius here is not in creating something for the masses it is creating something far too human.And so it begins...Noah Baumbach does it again. By it I am referring to his simple ambiguous style he refined in SQUID AND THE WHALE and continued in MARGOT AT THE WEDDING - both films contain a feeling that

TAKING OFF: Milos Forman's First English Film

2010-04-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

Prior to Milos Forman's groundbreaking adaptation of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST, he made a wonderfully radical film called TAKING OFF which featured extreme hippy overtones. This film has never received a wide DVD release and thus is holy grail to find. I viewed a VHS of it recently and it still lives up to what it was in 1971. The basic plot is simple: a married couple Lynn and Larry Tyne